Consider this ... the Net Auction goliath eBay, has nearly 5 million
items for sale daily and over 22.5 million registered users. eBay
estimates its share of the global market will soon be in excess of
$1 trillion! Their revenues in the year 2000 surpassed $430 million.
It's obvious eBay is the QUEEN of internet auctions, however,
there are still hundreds more that are buying and selling
products every day. In spite of it's enormous size, eBay
is definitely a profit paradise for the small seller ... the
work from home individual, the small business owner and the
entrepreneur.
Net auctions seem to intrigue you, but you're just not sure
if...
a) they fit your needs (personal and business).
b) there's honestly any money to be made.
After all, hype is everywhere. Maybe you think Net auctions might
be fine for playful buying and selling, but they're
not a real "take home pay" business.
Fair enough, these are certainly reasonable concerns. A new business
venture is not to be taken lightly. You need "ground level"
knowledge not pie-in-the-sky marketing hype.
Hello My Friend, Roosevelt Jones here...
I firmly believe in giving value in order to form business
relationships, so I have negotiated with the authors of Make
Your Net Auction Sell, Ken Evoy and Sydney Johnston, to give you
a taste of the knowledge contained in their book.
Let's get started ...
A Net auction business can be the solution to financial, employment
and business concerns, satisfying personal needs and dreams.
Why? Here are a few reasons to get the ball rolling...
1) There is NO financial risk for start-up! It is cheap, cheap,
cheap to start an auction business! You never have to
worry about employees, rent, costly technology or any of
the other expenses that eat money.
2) Auction sites attract millions -- yes, millions -- of TARGETED
customers! Auction sites have already done the hard
and expensive work of getting customers for you. You just
need to provide a great product at a great price.
3) Auctions are the EASIEST game on the Net. You can start immediately,
with very little knowledge. The learning curve is minimal. You can
be operating an auction business five minutes from now.
Naturally, if you decide to become a serious player, making thousands
each week, you will need to educate yourself. But even
then, it is the easiest and most do-able business on the Net.
That doesn't mean that you will become an overnight millionaire
working 10 minutes a day, like so many of those ridiculous
Internet claims would have you believe. But running a Net auction
business surely isn't brain surgery. The basics can be mastered
quickly, and then it is just a matter of selling and practicing
to raise your skill level.
4) Here's an insider secret so listen closely...
You can use online auctions as a TRAFFIC GENERATOR to promote
your business or any other interests that you have. Regardless
of what you're doing on the Internet, you can use Net auctions
to drive traffic to your product or service. Lots of traffic.
And fortunately for you, almost no one realizes what a powerful
strategy this is. NOW is the time to take advantage of the power
of auctions, before everyone else wakes up to the possibilities.
5) Your auction business is ALWAYS open -- but you don't have
to be! Once you list your product/service, you can go
about your other business. It's not like a retail store,
or an office, or even a garage sale where you must be there
in person.
6) You can spend an hour a
week... or ten hours a day... on your auction business. Your
level of involvement is your decision. Meaning there is no reason
to give up the security of a pay check, until you are ready.
7) There is the FUN FACTOR (the best part)! For now, focus on
just two very basic questions...
a. "What do you want from your auction business?"
- Do you want a part-time income?
- Do you have a special need? For example, $1,000 each month
to cover the mortgage ?
- Are you really ambitious, want to quit your job in six months
and need $20,000 a month?
- Want to spend more time with your family? Or have the entire
family in your auction business?
- Do you want the freedom to play golf every Wednesday or coach
the Little League team?
- Would you spend every waking moment buying and selling antique
musical instruments?
b. What can I bring to this Net auction business?
- enthusiastic interest/ zeal of passion
- great product/service o time (how much?)
- family support (emotional and physical) o effort and perseverance
- ... (your suggestions) ...
The more questions and answers you add, the sharper your
focus will be.Thinking about what you could sell? Ready to
get started right away? These are good healthy signs of enthusiasm,
motivation to begin something new. Keep your excitement bubbling
as we answer two key start-up questions for a Net auction business...
1) "What should I sell"?
2) "Where do I find customers?"
Your attic/basement/closet's treasures can get your toe in the
door but why settle for that? Think long term. The best way to
answer these questions is to look at what's already selling well
on the auction sites. Identify DEMAND.
Auction sites divide all their items for sale into categories.
So the first thing you need to do is investigate some categories.
By doing this, you will learn what is "hot", what price it's bringing
and how to maximize your profits. Research in advance saves
you time and money.
This article only highlights two great strategies to get you
off and running. (MYNAS! deals with them more extensively,
providing strategies, creative ideas and inspiring role models
to help build your business and your confidence.)
http://mynas.sitesell.com/wired2sell.html
Without further delay, put on your Auction Detective Hat, open
your browser and go to... http://www.ebay.com/
If you have a passion already, that's great! If you don't,
there's no rush. You'll figure it out as you go along. An open
mind will make the difference in your search. One tip... if
you are undecided and feel no particular buzz for anything,
a great idea for finding a category would be checking the
Drop Ship Source Directory
because it contains GENUINE manufacturer
and wholesale distributor contacts who drop ship more than
1,000 REAL brand names, from Adidas to Panasonic to Zogg's.
OK. You're at eBay?
On the left side of the home page, you will see two sections:
Specialties and Categories. For now, ignore the Specialties section,
it's for more advanced usage. Let's use the category of books for
this exercise.
Click on the "Books" section. This takes you to a page with listings
in 17 subcategories. Now click on "First Editions", which has
two categories of "General" and "Signed". Directly below the heading
of First Editions is a section that says "Current", with four choices
next to it...
o New Today -- lists books that have been listed in the last 24
hours. This is moderately interesting, and possibly
worth looking at if you are very interested in your
subject.
o Ending Today -- contains books have
been for sale for several days, usually at least
a week and their bids.
o Completed -- are books that go back
two to three days.
o Going, going, gone -- indicate auctions
which end in five hours. Your detective work begins
at this point.
Each of these sections offers information that you need. This
lets you see the big picture around demand, price and value at
a glance. This is important knowledge, no matter where you are in
your business life cycle, start-up or growth phase. There is a second
strategy that is just as effective.
Decide what kind of profit you want to make on an item. Some beginners
are content with any kind of profit. Other sellers, especially
those with experience, define their needs within a particular
range. (For our research example below, you have decided
that books under $100 dollars do not provide enough profit
potential.)
Ready? Go back to the home page of eBay. See the icon at
the top of the page that says, "Search". Click on it. Your screen
should say, "Smart Search," followed with "By Item Number", "By
Seller", "By Bidder", "Completed Items", "International Search".
Fill in your screen this way...
o Search Title -- "first edition." The quotation marks will give
a more exact result.
o Search Title and Description -- check
that box.
o All of These Words, Any of These
Words, Exact Phrase -- I choose Exact phrase because
these are fairly common words
o Words to Exclude -- none
o Price Range -- Insert $100 and leave
the top range blank o Payment -- Leave blank.
Unnecessary for research.
o Search in Categories -- Choose "BOOKS".
o Item location -- All of eBay
Click. Once the selections are displayed, you can then further
refine your search, if you wish, by clicking "highest priced
first". These two strategies will open your mind to lots of possibilities
and help you define your niche. Try several categories and then
narrow your choice down to two or three that are the most interesting
to you.
After you have followed the listings for a few weeks, you will
begin to get a very good feel for profitable merchandise.
Continue to get an accurate picture of what's "hot" by checking
back frequently. Ongoing research is vital to your long-term success.
One word of caution. The item has to be "hot" for you, too. Choose
items that match your interests or passion. It will make
your research more enjoyable and deeper because YOU want to
know more about the items. You will be *playing* not working!
Now for the second most frequently asked question by newcomers
to the Net auction business world ... "Where do I find customers?"
The auction sites have already attracted millions of customers.
Take advantage of their hard work. They have the traffic
and the buyers all you have to do is show up with a great product
at a great price. It's just that simple. How much interest is there
for Net auctions? Check out the
Infopia Marketplace.
This makes international selling a real possibility for the small
home business owner. You can sell your products in France
or Australia as easily as you can in Kansas. And not only
that... Great traffic is very
affordable.
Best of all .... the traffic you get is TARGETED! If you are selling
computer parts, buyers interested in sports autographs won't be
looking at your sale items. And isn't that exactly what you want?
Trying to sell to people who aren't interested is an exercise
in futility and a total waste of your time. Bottom line...
Net auctions attract a huge volume of targeted customers
who are actively searching for products
or services.
The sweet taste of success from Net auctions may sooner or later
lead you to build your own web site to sell more products
and create another profitable income stream. That gives customers
two options for buying, auction or retail. Add a link from the listing
to the main site. This encourages customers to visit your site
for more information or to see your other products.
Of course, there are lots of sellers competing with you for the
attention of all those eager buyers. Stand out from
the crowd and draw surfing eyeballs to YOUR product or service.
Write powerful ads or listings.
Your goal is to sell your items for the HIGHEST possible price.
A strong listing will help you accomplish this goal. Writing
listings that sell takes...
1) Knowledge
Auction listings are allowed only a relatively small number of
letters and numbers to get the message across. You can't ramble
on forever. There are certain key words and ideas that will "push
the buttons" of all your potential customers. Get into
your customer's mind and write for him or her. KNOW YOUR BUYER.
2) Practice
Like all skills in life, writing profitable listings
requires practice and tweaking until you get it just right. When
you first begin, you may decide to keep your listings
very simple. As you gain experience, your content will reflect
your growing awareness of your market and what they want.
3) Ongoing observation
Observation is the last big key to successful listings.
Learn from other successful sellers. Spend time surfing listings
of similar items to yours. Evaluate their strengths/weaknesses.
Are they highlighting a feature or benefit that you didn't think
about?
OK. Now that you know the rules of the road to success, it's time
to DRIVE! Your first action is to shop for something to BUY at an
auction site. Surprised? Why "buy" when you are ready and anxious
to sell? Relax, selling is the next step.
To be a successful seller, you need the experience of buying,
in order to understand your buyer's perspective and to know
how to create a smooth sales transaction. So... it's time to
visit eBay again. http://www.ebay.com/
Identify a category that interests you. Gardening equipment? Car
parts? Old magazines? Sport accessories? Click on your choice. Now
as you scroll through the listed items, pay close attention to three
critical aspects of an effective listing...
1) The Headline
Imagine your buyer sitting in her chair, looking at her
screen, scrolling leisurely down the page. Out of all the choices,
what's going to make her stop and click on a specific one? There's
only one possibility ... a HEADLINE.
Try this yourself. Take 10 separate listings and rank their headlines
in your mind from most effective to least effective.Which headline
would you click first? Why?... Second? Why?...
Now continue this "buying" exercise by examining...
2) The Content: See how well sellers in your category explain
their merchandise...
i) Description -- do you clearly understand what they are selling,
or do you have unanswered questions? Most buyers will
skip merchandise they don't understand. Bottom line? Incomplete
information results in lost buyers.
ii) Condition -- of course, much of the merchandise on the auction
sites is brand new. But if it isn't, look at the description
used. Words like "good", "excellent", etc., really are
inadequate.Two people may have very different ideas of this
meaning. One of the quickest ways to ruin an auction business
is to misrepresent "condition."
iii) Terms of the transaction -- how much do they charge for
shipping and handling? Is the process clearly explained?
iv) Value: in your opinion, are there discrepancies between the
items and their prices? Do you perceive the same value
as the seller? And finally, the remaining part of your research
project...
3) Presentation
i) HTML or not? What is the effect of each format as you
read listings? All auction sites allow the seller to simply
type in a listing. And this is perfectly acceptable. Many
sellers use this format and never change. However, there is no
doubt that using HTML format is easier to read and more professional
looking. And the better your listing looks, the more likely you are
to make a substantial profit.
ii) Pictures or not?
Some items absolutely require pictures, while others do not. For
example, if you sell jewelry, you will make few sales unless your
buyers can see what they are bidding on. Photos, if clear and well-done,
add professionalism and impact to a listing.
The pieces of the Net auction business puzzle are falling into
place. But to get a full sense of the "big picture," you need
one more important piece, where to find a reliable source
of wholesale name brand goods that folks recognize and buy
all the time. As we said before, your ongoing growth and success
depends on it. So you want the best, click on the following link
to get the
Drop Ship Source Directory
.
Begin buying merchandise that you can resell at a profit.
In fact, using the Drop Ship Source Directory guarantees wholesale
pricing and you never have to physically buy or inventory any products
whatsoever. There is no risk to your own capital.
Caution is critical because...You MAKE your money WHEN
YOU BUY, not when you SELL! Please re-read the last part
of that statement. "You make your money when you buy, not when
you sell!" It is your key to auction profits.
There are three more prudent guidelines to follow when you begin
to think about goods or merchandise for your Net auction
biz...
1) Start small, both in price and quantity. Experiment a bit
with those $10 accessories. Try selling them one or two items
at a time. Ensure that there is a strong market for them before you
rush out and buy 500 more.
2) Concentrate on only two or three categories, at first. It's
safer and easier to begin with two or three categories.
Even as you grow with experience, you may stick with two or three
niche categories so that you can specialize and become a recognized
expert in your selected areas of interest.
3) Know your costs. This is absolutely critical! If something
is worth $25, you cannot realistically expect someone to
pay $100 (sometimes this will happen but don't count on it).
Develop a checklist of all your costs involved in a sale. There
is one included in Make Your Net Auction Sell! that takes only
a minute or two to fill out and makes sure you don't lose money.
http://mynas.sitesell.com/wired2sell.html
4) Avoid costly mistakes. If you follow #1, #2, and #3, you
will automatically succeed at #4. :-) There is one more
caveat to add... Test, test, test. One super advantage of
an auction is that you receive feedback very quickly. In as
little as three days, you can know if your product is going to
sell or not.
For example, maybe the item would do better in a different category.
Or maybe the content of the listing needs a little reworking
to highlight the benefits of the product. Make Your Net
Auction Sell! even provides a chapter on what to do if....
your item doesn't sell at all.
One of the largest DOCUMENTED eBay-earnings total belongs to
a couple in West Virginia who were researched by the Wall
Street Journal. According to the WSJ, they averaged $600,000
a month!
This best-selling pair stated that only about 40% of their
merchandise sold the first time around. However, they have
learned what to do when this happens. MYNAS! will show you how
to handle it, too.
http://mynas.sitesell.com/wired2sell.html
With these guidelines firmly fixed
in your mind, you can now decide on your sales strategy.
There are two basic strategies for auction sales...
First, you can sell a multitude of
small, LOWER PRICED items. This is a simple business model
in many ways. You don't need a lot of specialized knowledge.
The downside is that you will have to do a LOT of transactions
to make money. For example, let's say that your profit on a
particular item is $2 and you have set a profit goal of $500 for
that item. You would need to sell 250 to meet your objective.
The second strategy is to deal in smaller
numbers of much more EXPENSIVE items. The good part of that
is that it is much easier to handle one transaction, rather than
250. And the profit margin is much higher when you sell. The
downside, of course, is that expensive products often require specialized
knowledge.
Finally, the majority of sellers begin to specialize.
When you get to this stage, you don't need forty-seven suppliers,
but only a relative handful of RELIABLE suppliers, like any
of those listed in the
Drop Ship Source Directory
. It is critical to your success that
you find merchants you can count on, who deliver on time,
whose merchandise is as advertised and ... who value you as
a PARTNER. Evaluate a supplier BEFORE you risk your auction
reputation selling their goods.
Now let's look at the key elements of payment,
shipping and handling, record keeping. A sales transaction is
simply an exchange. Your buyer gives you her money and you give her
the solid gold gizmo she just bought. So you need to...
1) Accept payment
2) Package and ship
As you become more involved and grow your Net auction
business, you will start creating problems for yourself if
you don't have some sort of a SYSTEM. Be organized, right from
the beginning. Develop an effective record-keeping system. The
minimum information that you need to record is...
o Name and contact information of
your buyer
o Description of what they bought
o How they paid and how much
o How and when you shipped their goodies,
including tracking numbers or insurance
information, if appropriate
o Dates of everything
With an organized system, you can keep
track of your business and respond intelligently to inquiries
about your products and/or sales. And when it's tax time,
it's easy to fill in the required spaces on those government forms.
MYNAS! provides more details on how to "stay-on-top" of your business
and make it as streamlined as possible.
http://mynas.sitesell.com/wired2sell.html
OK. With that in mind, let's continue
with the other parts of the sale . Before you list your item
at an auction site, you need to figure out what you will charge
for shipping and handling. There are only two choices...
1) Either the buyer pays the actual
amount of the shipping.
2) She pays a set amount that is predetermined
by you.
The predetermined amount is how many
auction sellers are able to set their prices so low. They
start an auction at one cent but charge a flat fee of $5
for shipping and handling. It may only cost a fraction of that
amount to mail. If the item sells for a lower-than-expected price,
there is some cushion built into the transaction. Keep track
of the different rates for items in your category. This will help
you to decide your own shipping fee structure.
OK. The auction is over. Your item
sold. The auction site contacts you confirming the sale
and provides you with the e-mail address of your buyer. Now
it's your job to follow-up with the customer. In an e-mail, remind
him of what he bought from you, the final sale price and the shipping
and handling charge. And specify how you accept PAYMENT.
Almost every item is paid through online
payment. We recommend this option for its convenience. The
best known and most widely used is PayPal, but there are many
other choices. Some auction sites have their own payment systems.
(Once again, MYNAS! has done the prep work for you by outlining
different options.) The one thing you never want to do is ask
for cash! It's still perceived as a security risk by many people
and could turn off potential buyers.
Next step in the sales transaction?
Shipping and handling if you are not using wholesale drop shippers.You
have several options for your mailing service, such as the Post
Office, UPS or FedEx. The last two are be a bit more expensive.
But if you are sending parcels internationally, they are the service
of choice.
And there you have it. A "bird's eye view" of a Net auction
business. MYNAS! includes dozens of strategies and ideas that will
increase your earnings immediately. There are even examples
of what NOT to do (often we learn more from mistakes than successes).You
can also take a peek at some successful sellers who are encouraging
role models...
- Alan Probst, a catcher for the NY Mets AAA team, is proof that
you CAN hold down a job and still succeed in auctions.
- Richard involves his entire family in the auction business
- The Youngs have an online business that grew out of their own
needs. They sell mailing supplies to auction sellers.
- And, as a final example, there's Wendy who had to scrounge for
change on the floor of her car, just to cross a toll bridge -- until
she discovered auctions.
Internet auctions are
here to stay.
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